NLL Insider

In his first year as the General Manager of the dynasty Junior A Burnaby Lakers, Richard Appels is well aware of the size of the shoes he’s expected to fill. With less than two weeks to go until the first face-off of the ‘08 season, the Burnaby boss talks his 12 graduated players, the Alex Gajic rumours, and the loss of Mr. Lacrosse.

Last year the Burnaby Lakers were 19-2, which landed you a first place finish and a trip to the Minto. Are your expectations for the ‘08 season that lofty?
Well of course they’re as high, we want to go to the Minto. But because we lost 12 players last year what we’re hoping for is third place, fighting for second. We’ll probably end up in third but we figure we might end up in second.

Who do you think could top you in the standings?
Coquitlam and New West.

Why’s that?
Well, Coquitlam is buying players. They bought a goalie from back east [Joel Weber]. And another player I believe [Scott Defrancesco], we heard the reports. We’re not buying any players. We just can’t afford it. With Jack Crosby dying there’s a big transition this year, there’s a big learning curve for me because I’m taking over the team. So it’s a transition year for us until we get everything sorted out but we still believe that by the end of the year we’re going to be the team to beat.

With Angus Goodleaf back in Ontario and Adam Meakes graduated who’s going to be between the pipes for Burnaby?
Our goaltenders are going to be Tom Wray–we just made a trade with Nanaimo for him in the last couple of days–and we have a goalie from Surrey, Brandon Smith. This was another player that we just got, we’re actually still in the negotiation process with him. We have a very good defense. We’re going to have strong goalies, the kid from Nanaimo we figure with a good defense in front of him this year he’s going to play a lot better.

You talked a little about the players you lost to graduation and not only was it a big number, they were some big players. What kind of an impact do you think their absence will have on the team?
Well our offense is going to have to step it up this year because we’ve lost some great guys–we lost Garrett Billings, we lost Jamie Lincoln, and we lost Dane Dobbie and those are three very powerful offensive players. But we still have Alex Gajic, we still have Joe Vetere, and we have a couple other players that we feel are going to step into their shoes.

Speaking of Alex Gajic, the big rumour right now is that he’s headed to Six Nations. Do you know anything about that?
Well it’s just a rumour. He’s already signed with Burnaby. He’s signed his paper and we have his card so he’s not going anywhere. This is Alex’s last year and he’s a Burnaby boy. All his brothers went through Burnaby and same with him. He wants to stay here. A lot of it has to do with school too because he’s trying to get a scholarship and because of NCAA rules he doesn’t want to take a chance that anything could screw that up.

Who are some of the players you’ll be bringing in to round out the roster?
We’ve signed one fellow, his name is Ryan Milling, he’s originally from Orillia but he played Junior B in Kelowna last year so he’s not an import because he’s lived here. He played for the Rutland Raiders last year. We’ve signed one import from Calgary, Connor Mooney, he’s a big defensive player. We’re going to be doing a bunch of signings on Thursday. At this point in time we’re still looking, everybody’s still looking for imports. There’s a couple of boys that we’re looking at, we’ll see what happens. There may be a couple from the States, we don’t know yet.

Who are the players you’re expecting big seasons from?
Defensively Mike Gilmore and Warren Will are going to be strong. I don’t want to give away all my secrets you know! There’s a couple players that I believe are going to surprise a lot of people with how they’re going to play this year. They’re second year players. I’m not going to mention any names but I know they are going to do very well this year. We’re expecting bigger things from Shawn Dhaliwal, he’s a righty. Alex of course, how do you stop Alex Gajic? He’s basically in a league all by himself. We have five players still in school and all those five players are returning. Brock Armour will be back and he’s a force on offense and transition too so we’re expecting a lot out of him. That’s all I’m going to tell you!

How far ahead are you looking? Are you looking at Ontario and thinking about possible Minto match-ups?
Yeah, I mean we think Six Nations will be there again because they still have some phenomenal players. I know they lost a few good players from last year. But who knows. Ontario is such a tight group that it could be Peterborough or Orangeville or anybody. It seems like every time Orangeville goes up against Six Nations in the final they end up not winning. We think Six Nations will come out again.

You touched on Jack Crosby’s passing earlier. What did he mean to this organization?
In one phrase: Burnaby’s Mr. Lacrosse. Jack was one of two founding members of Lacrosse in Burnaby 40 some odd years ago. He was the President of Burnaby Minor and all the Burnaby Senior Lacrosse teams for many years. His passion was the children playing lacrosse. He always put them ahead of everything. He had no hidden agendas, no personal glory in mind, just the best possible commitment to the kids. His dedication to the Junior Lakers was unprecedented. 12 consecutive years to the Minto Cup, 5 time champions, 12 times B.C. champs, and all that time he did not wish to be recognized or to gain fame and fortune. I have dearly missed my weekly sittings across from Jack at Victory Trophies where he ran everything, including his business. The City of Burnaby has dedicated and re-named the Riverway lacrosse box the Jack Crosby Memorial Lacrosse Box in his honour. We will all miss him in the lacrosse community across B.C. because he contributed so much to the game.

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